ffice technology is important only to the extent that it allows people to connect-to manage and enhance their relationships, says John Kao, author of Jamming: The Art and Discipline of Business Creativity and head of the Managing Innovation Program at Stanford University.
And government agencies are getting better at designing and equipping offices that do just that: encourage information sharing and support decision-making.
In every product category, from faxes to furniture, copiers to presentation equipment, new technologies offer increasing automation, reliability and flexibility. Faster faxes, easy-to-reconfigure furniture, digital copiers and computer-driven presentation products share three characteristics: They facilitate communication, free users' time for more substantive tasks and support the creative ways workers devise to get their jobs done.
At the Federal Supply Service's office and scientific equipment center, a move toward paying only for the copies made is aimed at saving money and, perhaps more important, administrative time. With the cost-per-copy program, the vendor provides the copier and all maintenance and repair. That can eliminate a lot of paperwork: no more supply or maintenance orders; no more purchase, lease or rental agreements; no training contracts; no figuring out how to dispose of obsolete machines, says FSS' Jeanne Deck.
Programs such as these, plus the emergence of digital and multifunctional machines (incorporating fax, printing and copying), will increase efficiency and productivity. "Agencies should be able to operate at a lower cost and produce better products, like in-house publications," Deck says.
A move toward commercial products and operating principles also is helping government workers embrace creativity. "We're trying to make it easier for them to get what they need to perform their mission," says Roy Chisolm, director of FSS' ADP Acquisition Center. "Anything you see commercially, we can get under contract."
GSA's National Furniture Center, for example, has outfitted the 12 federal telecommuting sites across the country. Some of the sites are testing furniture not yet commercially available, "a far cry from the 'good enough for government' days of gun-metal gray desks," says Assistant Regional Administrator Jack Williams.
Vendors, too, are recognizing the need to prove how their products ease information flow. "If you can't show a customer how to create value through technology, [you] won't survive very long in the 21st century," Dan Doyle, CEO of dealer conglomerate and manufacturer Danka, told the Business Technology Association's 1997 conference. "We have to enhance value . . . in the office place."
Downsized agencies facing tight budgets can survive only by taking full advantage of their remaining employees' creativity. That means improving the methods and machinery for accomplishing the basic mission, according to Kao. "A lot of people mistakenly equate creativity with idea generation," he says. "Real creativity is a measure of an [organization's] capability, something you do 365 days a year."
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